Both teams are now 4-5 in region play, along with Gaffney, while Nation Ford and Rock Hill are both a game back at 3-5. York got a big win thanks in large part to a second-half awakening by standout Deshaw Andrews. The senior hit five 3-pointers on the way to 25 points, after scoring just four in the first half.

Andrews said the difference in the second half was “just taking a little bit off of the shot and getting my teammates involved more.”

York coach Michael Dalton was thankful his best player came to life in the second. But the Cougars played well in the first even without Andrews’ contributions. The visitors rose to the occasion on a night when they really needed a win.

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“I feel like I’ve got a couple of the top players in the region, and I feel like everybody over here saw that tonight,” Dalton said. “Deshaw stepped up and made some big shots. Daurice and Wally Wilmore were taking care of the basketball for us. We missed some free throws down the stretch, but this is a resilient bunch of kids.”

The game pitted two of the area’s best big men, York’s Andrews and Northwestern’s Manzi Hill, but Andrews scored just four in the first half, while Hill was shut out.

Ebasion Moore was an active post presence for York in the first 16 minutes with two blocked shots, and it was his darted pass to Taywaun Neely for a layup that gave the visitors a 19-15 lead. But Northwestern closed the half in strong fashion, Jaquavious Clowney finishing at the rim and Malcolm Anthony sending Larry Davis’ team to the locker room with a 23-22 lead.

An alley-oop slam by Hill gave Northwestern a 32-29 lead in the third quarter, but Andrews caught fire, his feathery touch tickling the net on a string of shots to put the Cougars in front. He hit consecutive 3’s, then muscled into the lane for a bucket to give York a 40-36 lead. Another Andrews 3 made it 47-41 with 14 seconds left in the third quarter, but that would prove the biggest lead of the game the rest of the way.

Northwestern chased York the entire fourth quarter and cut the lead to two with 28 seconds left. Larry Davis called timeout with eight seconds left, but Malcolm Anthony’s well-guarded 3 was off the mark and an inbounds play with 0.4 seconds left didn’t work. Northwestern fell to 0-4 in region games played on Fridays.

Northwestern 35, York 23: The Trojans held York to two points in the last 12 minutes of the game and beat the visiting Cougars.

York’s two points during that barren stretch came on a bank shot at the fourth-quarter buzzer. Before that, the stingy Trojans allowed them nothing. That came as a bit of a surprise considering Paula Blackwell’s Cougars had a 19-13 lead with six minutes left in the third quarter.

Northwestern coach John Bramlett said his team was playing the same sticky defense, with one difference.

“We couldn’t take what we were getting on the defensive and score,” he said. “But I’m proud of our girls. They could have folded.”

They didn’t. Instead, Northwestern ripped off a stretch of 17 points unanswered that bridged the third and fourth quarters. Trojan guard quartet NaNa Jones, Destyne Garmon, Makenna Thompson and Tiana Lewter were an often impenetrable barrier in front of the York 3-point arc, and in the second half they took advantage of their takeaways to win an eighth region game.